The present invention relates generally to financial transactions, particularly to consumers requesting financial transactions with merchants, and more particularly to financial transactions conducted with a prepaid payment device issued by a financial institution that may be used both to gain admission to a future performance event, and for transactions with merchants other than the merchant offering admission to the future performance event.
Traditionally, to attend a future performance event, such as a music concert or theater production, a consumer purchases a paper ticket. The ticket is usually printed with the name of the event, date, time, and seating location, but no other information is stored on the ticket. This ticket can be used only for admission to the event it was purchased for and is typically collected, cancelled, or torn when the consumer enters the event venue to indicate it has been used. Once inside the venue, the consumer must purchase any desired food, memorabilia, or other items using traditional forms of payment, such as cash, credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, checks, or a combination thereof. The ticket and form of payment are completely separate items, requiring the consumer to carry both items when attending the event. Further, the various forms of payment can be easily stolen or lost. With forms of payment such as credit cards and debit cards, a thief can conduct substantial fraudulent monetary transactions. The ticket itself is easily damaged, sometimes intentionally in the process of gaining admission, and thus has limited value as a long term souvenir due to the blemish on its face.
Given the foregoing, it would be an advance in the art to combine the ticket for admission to a future performance event with a prepaid card to form a prepaid payment device.